U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts shaped by turbulent and painful past

The Republican | Mark M. MurrayU.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., gets ready to order lunch during a stop at Milano Importing Inc. at 988 Main St. in Springfield, where he made a stop in January to check up on progress of damage repair following last year's tornado.

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BOSTON – U.S. Sen. Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts says his turbulent childhood made him more resilient and a stronger person.

“A lot of the stuff that you hear and see in the TV and the newspapers and all the negativity, it rolls off my back,” Brown says. “When you go through what I’ve gone through, and what people like me have gone through in their lives, you recognize what’s important.”

Brown rebounded from a lot of childhood pain, and he’s also made a career out of comebacks in politics.

Brown said he is working to be a bipartisan voice in Washington. He said he is probably the most bipartisan member of the state's congressional delegation.

His approach paid off last month when Obama stopped next to Brown after the president's "State of the Union" speech and the two agreed to work together on Brown's bill to ban members and employees of Congress and the executive branch from insider trading. The bill has since been approved in the US House and Senate and the two branches are now resolving minor differences.

In his autobiography, “Against All Odds,” Brown writes about an itinerant childhood marred by violence, destitution and abandonment. He said he expected the book, published in 2011, might shatter some assumptions about him.

“I think people know me through the book more,” Brown said during an interview in late December at Mul’s Diner in South Boston. “A lot of the distortions and misrepresentations are over. That’s one of the reasons I was thankful that it came out. People have an assumption about who I am, what I am and what makes me tick and they couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll let it speak for itself.”

In the book, which made it to the fourth spot on the New York Times’ best-seller list, Brown wrote about a dark past at a Christian camp on Cape Cod. Brown wrote that he had been molested by a male counselor who followed him into a bathroom while he was attending the camp after the fourth-grade.

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Brown’s reporting on the assault inspired other people to step forward and allege they had been victims of sexual assault by staff many years ago at the camp. At least two have filed civil lawsuits against the camp, Camp Good News, located in Sandwich. Brown did not name the camp, but the camp later wrote a letter of apology to him after the book’s release.

“I felt it was important to let people know where I’ve come from and the challenges I’ve gone through,” Brown said when asked why he brought up the sexual abuse. “I wanted to write a good book. I felt if I had an opportunity to speak out, it would maybe help others speak out. As evidenced by what has happened, it’s helped quite a few people and I’m thankful for that.”

Carmen L. Durso, a lawyer in Boston for two people who filed a lawsuit against the camp alleging they were sexually abused by a counselor and for a third client with comparable allegations, and Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer, both say Brown showed a lot of courage in writing about the charges.

“Sen. Brown’s coming forward has empowered victims and made the world a better place for children,” said Garabedian, who represents eight people with similar allegations against the camp.

Brown’s parents, Judith A. Brown and C. Bruce Brown, a former city councilor in Newburyport, were married and divorced four times and three times each, respectively, the book said. His father left when he was about a year old. His mother struggled with waitress jobs, episodic bouts of binge drinking and domestic violence.

Brown writes that by the time he was 18, he had moved 17 times and lived in a dozen rental homes in communities ringing Boston, including Revere, Wakefield and Malden.

His mother was the daughter of a financially-secure, MIT-educated, electrical engineer for Boston Edison, but she got into some bad marriages.

His first step-father was a beer-drinking, oil truck driver who was so mean that he swiped Brown’s pet kitten off a couch, fatally wounding it. Brown writes that he was just 6 when he awoke one night to shouts, banging and the sight of this step-father repeatedly punching his sobbing mother in their Revere apartment.

“I dived down,” Brown wrote. “His legs were hard and strong, but I grabbed on with both arms and then I opened my mouth and I bit him. I bit him right through his pants as hard as I could. I was like a pit bull and would not let go.”

The family brawl ended when the police arrived. A few months later, the step-father vanished without ever getting to know his infant daughter, Leeann, the only other child of Brown’s mother.

Brown’s second step-father was a bartender who often was absent from their Malden home, leaving the 7-year-old Brown to hang around with older boys.

Brown escaped from a frightening jam one day when a teenage boy lured him into the woods and attempted to force him to perform a sex act at knife point. When the attacker closed his eyes, Brown smashed him in the face with a rock and fled, leaving the older boy howling in pain.

In his book, Brown also wrote about how his wife of 25 years, Gail Huff, faced her own challenges. Huff’s parents divorced and moved out of their house when she was 17, leaving Huff and her sisters behind to basically finish raising themselves, Brown wrote.

Later, Huff was hospitalized with postpartum depression after a high-risk pregnancy with their second daughter. Brown and Huff experienced some trying times and on some days, close friends were ready to take bets their marriage wouldn’t last, Brown wrote.

In an interview, Huff, 50, said the setbacks made her a stronger and better mother.

“Scott and I talked a lot about the truth and the truth of our past making us who we are today,” she said. “I wish everything was sugar and spice, but it’s not in life. That’s the reality.”

Huff, a former model who worked as a reporter for nearly 20 years for WCVB-TV Channel 5 in Boston, currently is a part-time general assignment reporter for WJLA-TV Channel 7 in Washington.

She said Brown decided at an early age that when he had a family, he would do everything differently from what he experienced growing up.

Huff and Brown have two daughters, Ayla, 23, a past contestant on “American Idol” and country music singer, and Arianna, 20, a student at Syracuse University.

While alcohol hurt his mother and often fueled the rage of step-fathers, Brown writes that he never liked hard liquor himself and never had more than two or three beers. He said he also had no interest in drugs.

By time he reached junior high school, Brown found salvation through basketball.

He starred at Wakefield High School and won a basketball scholarship to Tufts University in Medford, a top Division III team. As a high school senior, he averaged 23 points a game and was named co-MVP of his team’s league. He started for three years at Tufts and was co-captain as a senior.

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“If it wasn’t for basketball and sports in general and the good will of a couple of good people, I wouldn’t be here talking to you,” said Brown, who stands 6 feet, 1-inch tall. “I wasn’t the greatest basketball player, but for me, it is something that saved my life.”

Brown wrote that he stayed close to home for college because he believed he needed to protect his mother and sister from a third step-father. The man lost his fingers in an industrial accident and vented his anger on Brown and his mother.

That step-father, pumped up with alcohol, threatened to break Brown’s hands and end his hoop dreams. At night, the two would wrestle and bang and slam each other, always fighting to a draw, Brown wrote.

“I started sleeping with my door locked and a heavy wooden baseball bat tucked away in my room, for protection,” he wrote.

Basketball also helped him connect with people in Washington, D.C., Brown says. Including some charity events, Brown has shot hoops with John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota who was also a high school star, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was co-captain of Harvard’s team, and Reginald L. Love, who played at Duke University and was on the president’s team.

“I don’t have a heck of a lot of time to play, but when we do, it’s fun,”said Brown. “I can’t walk the next day but it is fun.”

Brown got a lucky break while attending Boston College Law School in 1982 after Tufts. His sister entered him into Cosmopolitan’s contest for “America’s Sexiest Man.” When publisher Helen Gurley Brown called for the first time to say he was the winner, Brown hung up the phone. He only believed it for certain when he got a ticket to New York City in the mail.

The contest led to a lucrative modeling career that helped finance law school and put him in television commercials and on a billboard in Times Square.

With no financial support from his family, Brown writes that he was constantly finding ways to make money to pay for his education.

View full sizePhoto courtesy Scott BrownScott Brown joined the Army National Guard, inspired by the Guard's work during the Blizzard of 1978 and also inspired by a pay check.

That was one reason he signed up for the state Army National Guard in 1979, launching a 32-year career, including service as a trial defense lawyer for the Judge Advocate General Corps and promotion to lieutenant colonel in 2006. Brown said he was also inspired to enlist by the Guard’s work during the blizzard of 1978 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

He served his required Guard annual training in Afghanistan last year. Brown said he supported the president’s past surge of troops into Afghanistan and also backs the president’s plan for a phased withdrawal.

“If we do it appropriately, we can leave Afghanistan in a place where they cannot re-establish terrorist camps and support terrorism around the region and the world. I’m going to continue to work with the president on that issue.”

Brown received a bachelor's degree in history from Tufts in 1981 and his law degree from Boston College in 1985. Brown started in politics in his hometown of Wrentham, where he was first elected an assessor in 1992, then a selectman. After that, he served in the state House of Representatives and then the state Senate, starting in 2004.

In Washington, Brown is making a mark mostly as an independent and moderate.

That surprised some of the conservative activists who backed his campaign two years ago, but maybe it shouldn’t have.

Brown is strong on national security and opposes tax increases, but he said he is no party ideologue. Brown said he likes to find common ground where he can on the issues.

Brown, for example, was among four Republicans in the Senate to vote for financial reform in 2010, aimed at preventing a repeat of the collapse of 2008. He was the deciding vote in enabling the bill to pass over a filibuster in the Senate.

Brown quotes Elizabeth Warren as calling the law the best financial-regulation law in three generations.

“I was tired of banks acting like casinos with our money,” he said. “I made a stand, got involved and worked across the aisle in a very major piece of legislation.”

He was also among four GOP Senate members to vote against a top House Republican’s plan to overhaul Medicare.

He also voted in support of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that banned openly gay military members.

Late last year, he stood behind Obama at a signing ceremony for a key part of the president’s package to create jobs. Brown had advocated for a provision in the package to repeal a law that withheld 3 percent of public contracts to ensure payment of taxes. Brown had also pushed for a part of the package that established a tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

Last year, he also voted to continue funding for Planned Parenthood, helping defeat an effort by House Republican to cut off funding for the program.

Brown is known for his nearly around-the-clock campaign schedule. He said that won’t change this year, but at least one thing is different – he now has a U.S. Senate voting record that could become fodder for his opponent.

“I’m going to campaign the way I’ve always campaigned – just be myself,” Brown said. “But, I am also going to draw a line in the sand and push back at all the false and misleading attacks against my record. I’m the only one with a record, and it’s easy to cherry pick and distort. People deserve better.”

This time around, Brown will also be joined in a campaign for the first time by his wife. As a news reporter, she has avoided his prior election efforts.

Huff said she plans to take a leave from her television job, possibly in the early summer or fall, to participate in her husband’s re-election bid. She made her promise to him that she would help over a restaurant dinner on July 12 to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.

She said her husband is desperately needed in a polarized Washington as a bipartisan leader who can get people to talk and work together.

“Now that he has won, I feel he has to win again,” Huff said. “I feel there is no other option.”

“I’m hopeful the people will recognize that I’m doing exactly what I said,” Brown said. “I read the bills, I understand them. I see how it affects our debt and deficits, and I vote regardless of party.”

Brown is financially locked and loaded for the campaign. Brown started the year with $12.8 million in his campaign account, about twice as much as Warren.

Brown has reconciled with his parents. He said that being a U.S. senator is the “greatest honor” of his life and part of what is important in life.

“What’s important to me is the love and support of my wife and children, the fact I have my health and I have an opportunity to make a difference each and every day,” he said.

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